The AthleticDirectorU Podcast

Monmouth Athletics Director Marilyn McNeil and Grand Canyon Interim Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs sit down with Athletic Director U to discuss their approach and strategy to providing feedback to their staff, coaches, and student-athletes of different experiences and backgrounds and how they receive feedback from their superiors and coaches.

1:26 - What is your approach to giving feedback to staff, administrators, coaches, or student-athletes? 3:11 - What is your strategy in dealing with people that have different experiences, backgrounds, etc.? 6:34 - How do you learn about the feedback each individual responds best to, whether they need specific direction or open collaboration? 11:08 - How do you ensure that you are equipped with the knowledge to provide feedback to individuals in all areas of your organization? 13:40 - What do you think the best way for somebody to give you feedback?

NCAA Vice President for Women's Basketball Lynn Holzman sits down with Athletic Director U to dig into the current state and trajectory of women's basketball. Holzman touches on the strategic plan, response from issues in men's basketball, the transfer portal, rule changes, and more. Holzman also chats about the value of her past experience as the Commissioner of the West Coast Conference and what she wishes she knew early in her career.

0:57 - How did your experience as Commissioner for the West Coast Conference help you in your current role? 3:12 - What does not translate from your experience as Commissioner? 4:47 - Can you provide updates to the women's basketball strategic plan and what metrics you are using to judge progress? 10:44 - What has the response been from women's basketball coaches and stakeholders to the events that have transpired in men's basketball? 12:57 - Where and who is that feedback on those issues coming from? 14:44 - How is the transfer portal unique to women's basketball? 16:14 - Can you consciously see a difference in your opinions from your time as Commissioner to now as the Vice President of Women's Basketball? 17:20 - What rule changes are potentially on the horizon for women's basketball? 19:17 - If you could write a letter to your younger self, what advice would you give yourself and what do you wish you knew when you got into this industry? 20:33 - What would you point to as a speed bump in your own career that ended up being beneficial? 22:00 - What do you want the membership to know about the trajectory of women's basketball?

Dr. Eric Wood, UCF Deputy Athletic Director, joins Travis Smith on the Higher Ed Athletics podcast. In this episode Smith and Wood discuss pursuing advanced degrees and how they can be helpful for current and future athletic directors based on challenges facing the industry. Deciding to pursue a doctoral degree was an intentional decision for Wood to demonstrate commitment to keeping higher education at the forefront of intercollegiate athletics. As both a practitioner and academic, Wood discusses the communication challenges between researchers and administrators within college athletics. This conversation will have the audience ready to look up the list of advanced degrees offered at their own institutions.

Oregon State Associate Head Women's Basketball Coach Jonas Chatterton, Drury Head Women's Basketball Coach Molly Miller, and UNC Wilmington Assistant Women's Basketball Coach chat with Ventura Partners' Katy Young Staudt about a multitude of topics around the sport, namely the topic of men coaching women's basketball. The trio also dig in on the differences and similarities between men's and women's basketball coaching, development, and recruiting, while also touching on mental health, coaching turnover, and advice for young coaches.

2:35 - Are there too many men coaching women's sports? (Chatterton) 4:33 - What is the value of having a male on a coaching staff for women's sports? (Martin & Miller) 8:56 - What will it take to have more women coaching men's sports? (Miller & Martin) 10:51 - What are some of the differences between coaching men versus coaching women? 16:27 - Do you see a difference in the development between men's and women's basketball? (Martin & Chatterton) 19:36 - As a man coaching women's basketball, do you feel that your student-athletes are comfortable coming to you? (Chatterton) 20:59 - How do you approach and manage the mental health of your student-athletes? 23:52 - Do you discuss the more volatile turnover present in women's basketball? 26:30 - What advice would you give to an athletic director on how to know if an assistant coach is ready to be a head coach? 30:53 - What can we do to better prepare young assistant coaches for their next opportunity?

Newly appointed Western Carolina AD, Alex Gary, joins the AthleticDirectorU Podcast just after he is announced as the leader of the WCU Athletics Department. Gary, former Sr. Associate AD for Development at Oregon State touches on his leadership philosophy, his value alignment with the institution, being a part of a new administration on campus at WCU, and his excitement to get to know the Catamounts Student-Athletes.

Jacksonville Athletics Director Alex Ricker-Gilbert and Cal State Bakersfield Athletics Director Ziggy Siegfried sit down with Purdue Associate Athletics Director for Strategic Initiatives Tom Moreland to discuss getting comfortable in the AD chair. With similar experiences being promoted to the chair from within, Ricker-Gilbert and Siegfried discuss major decisions, decisions they would handle differently, areas of improvement, advice to first-time athletics directors and more.

1:19 - Walk us through the first major decision you made after stepping into the chair. 6:02 - What was a decision that you would have handled differently early in your tenure? 10:43 - How will you build a search committee the next time you hire a coach? (Siegfried) 11:41 - What is an area you seek to improve at as you continue to sit in the athletics director chair? 15:22 - Are there any disadvantages in being hired internally? 19:44 - What advice would you give to new athletics directors to prepare them for their first time in the chair?

Atlantic 10 Commissioner Bernadette McGlade, CIAA Commissioner Jacqie Williams and George Washington Director of Athletics Tanya Vogel sit down with AthleticDirectorU to discuss constituent management, managing influence, filtering information, and maximizing stakeholder value. The trio also touches on weighing opinions from various stakeholders and more.

1:44 - How do you manage the many people that want to have influence over the leadership positions that you have? 5:56 - How do you filter through all of the information and data that's coming to you to be able to come to a decision on what consensus really looks like? 10:06 - How do you measure all of the different opinions and how do you make decisions? 13:48 - Walk us through the CIAA's decision to relocate its men's and women's basketball tournament from Charlotte to Baltimore. (McWilliams) 16:28 - How does the long-term strategic planning process begin and evolve at the conference level? (McGlade) 18:47 - In the business world and the for-profit world, they say that a CEO's job is to maximize shareholder value. Obviously, we don't necessarily have shareholders in college athletics, but what is your ultimate job for the student-athletes or presidents that you may serve?

Tailgate Guys Founder & CEO Parker Duffey hosts a trio of Deputy ADs – Mississippi State's Jared Benko, Kentucky's DeWayne Peevy, and Clemson's Graham Neff – for an in-depth conversation about the Deputy AD role. The group discusses career paths and plans, managing up, addressing their weaknesses, and much more.

1:20 - What are some misconceptions about the Deputy AD position? 3:20 - How do you manage up and what is the importance of managing up as a Deputy AD? 5:56 - As a Deputy AD, what do you wish you knew more about? 9:24 - What are you doing to improve and work on your weaknesses? 13:18 - How specific was your career plan and how aligned has that been plan been with your career path? 18:23 - How do you balance your responsibilities and influence with being able to make things happen? 20:38 - How do you communicate across campus about major issues in college athletics and what your departments are doing about these issues? 25:17 - What are the characteristics of the perfect institution if and when you would step into the AD chair?

INFLCR Founder & CEO Jim Cavale sits down with AthleticDirectorU to dig into the future of Name, Image, And Likeness and the potential these changes pose for INFLCR. Cavale discusses the promotion of the "we" mentality, changes to the INFLCR business, scale, preparing for change, and much more.

1:11 - In a recent blog post, you mentioned that some worry about NIL changes creating a "me" environment, but how do you believe these changes will further the "we" mentality? 3:20 - Do you think NIL changes will allow for further amplification of team and institutional brands? 5:23 - How will potential NIL changes impact mid-level athletes? 7:52 - If you were a senior administrator, how would you be preparing for impending NIL changes? 10:14 - Is the INFLCR platform positioned to adapt to potential NIL changes and help connect brands with student-athletes? 12:08 - How would these changes alter your business model? 13:35 - Can you scale the potential new aspects of the business to serve all the student-athletes that use the INFLCR and Teamworks platforms? 14:58 - How would this potential new revenue stream fit into your business?